


Spoon or Five Times Jack Cried

by phoenixgal



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Angst, Ascension, Canonical Character Death, Comfort Sex, Crying, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-08
Updated: 2017-01-08
Packaged: 2018-09-15 19:33:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9252638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoenixgal/pseuds/phoenixgal
Summary: Five times Jack cried.





	1. Mother

**Author's Note:**

> Lots of Jack/Sara, but the final one is Jack/Daniel. Lots of sadness and death. Warning is for rape that is referenced, but not described.

He has a full month of leave to deal with things but the first two weeks are nonstop. Tickets back to the States, tickets home, phone calls to Sara, to the lawyer, to the funeral home. And then there are a million little decisions to be made, like what exactly the tombstone should say and what she should be buried in and which newspapers to run the obituary.

He has to deal with priests, though he tries to put as much of the church stuff as he can onto his aunts. He and the church don't get along and haven't for a long time. And then once the funeral is done, he has to deal with the house and the stuff. It's a lot of stuff. Sara helps with that. Together, they sort through what they can actually take and what can go into storage and what to donate.

At the end of the two weeks, he's back home, where he hasn't been for months, and he's numb. Numb from the job because he didn't get a chance to do any of the things he does to leave it behind when goes home. Numb from the death of his mother. 

But it's okay that he's numb. He has almost two weeks left of his leave. And he's a guy. It doesn't matter that he wasn't weeping at the funeral or the graveside. He's just playing the role he's supposed to play. He's gotten pretty good at that over the last few years. He does the job, turns it off when he's supposed to, got married, bought a house, is climbing the career ladder.

Their second night home, Sara is exhausted from a long work day trying to catch up from the weeks she missed. She brings home a pizza and the two of them watch a basketball game and eat on the sofa. He's worked on fixing things in the house all day that have been waiting for him to come home. None of them are urgent. Sara keeps a running list. The next day will bring a truckload of his parents' stuff to try and incorporate into their own.

They slide into bed and Jack is still on autopilot, and autopilot for unexpected leave at home includes sex, which he has no objection to.

It's sex between two people who know each other well enough to skip most of the preliminaries, especially when they're both tired and wanting. Sara climbs on top of him and they find a rhythm together that's comforting and familiar. He's really home, really loved, really safe in the arms of his wife.

And that's when the grief barrels into him with the force of a Mack truck. He loses the rhythm of their lovemaking and grips Sara's arm with more force than he intends. In the dim light from the bedside table, she pauses too.

“Jack? You okay?”

He doesn't say anything. He's not sure what he would say if he could. There's nothing more perverse that he can think of than thinking of your dead mother while you're making love to your wife. And he's still hard, which makes the whole thing awkward.

Sara leans over so that her body is draped across him. “I've got you,” she says.

He shudders and lifts his head so that his face is against her neck, so that they can't look in each other's eyes.

She starts to move again, this time very slow but very hard. It isn't at all how she usually likes it. He doesn't think she can even get off in this position, but it feels intense and good for him. She keeps it up without speaking, holding him to her, not trying to look at him.

When his climax hits, it's both wonderful and awful all at once. She holds him through it and he feels himself shaking.

It's not until she has slid off him and turned him on his side, coming to spoon up behind him that he realizes that the shaking is sobs. Sara pulls the blankets over them and wraps her arms around him. She presses her face into the space between his shoulder blades and lets him feel her presence with him.

As Jack feels himself wrung out, she finally speaks. “She was a great woman. I know you think I didn't like her, but I always thought she was an amazing mother. Every parent should be as devoted to their kids as she was to you.”

“Yeah.”

“It's hard when it's sudden. I feel sad she never got to meet our future kids.”

She puts into words exactly what Jack is feeling but hasn't made into complete thoughts.

“I'll miss her too, Jack.”

As Jack drifts off to sleep a little while later, wrung out and exhausted, he whispers to Sara, “Thank you.”

In the morning, Sara makes French toast the way his mother used to, piled with too much cinnamon, before she leaves for work. She smiles and it's not until she's halfway out the door, grabbing her jacket and keys, that he realizes what he wants to say.

“Hey, wait.”

“I'm going to be late,” she warns.

“Let's start trying,” he says. And for a moment, as they pause, he's sure he needs to say more because he's said it without any context.

Then she breaks the silence with a kiss. When she pulls away she grins. “I'll flush the pill down the drain this afternoon,” she says.

“Sweet.”


	2. Tortured

By the time he gets home, he doesn't look bad. There are a few more scars and the broken arm isn't totally healed yet. But he's come home looking worse.

Even when he can plan, it always takes him a few days to come down and be home again after a long time under cover or out on a mission. He has to get his head back home. Sara knows the drill by now. She keeps Charlie out of his way for the most part and lets him be.

However, when it gets to be two weeks and he's still not meeting her eyes or getting her to do list done or roughhousing with their toddler son, then he knows she's starting to realize this is different. He wants to fake it, but he can't figure out how. All he wants to do is drink beer and stare at the wall. He doesn't even really want to do that, but he can't seem to do anything else.

It's midway through the second week when they finally fight about it. It's a relief, honestly. He realizes he's been waiting for her to hold him accountable. Not that it makes him give in during the fight, which is about whether he'll take Charlie to his swim lesson at the base pool. It just makes Jack dig in harder, yelling about how stupid it is to try and teach a two year-old to swim in the first place. The fight is pre-empted when Charlie wakes up from his nap screaming and Jack leaves the house, slamming the door behind him and taking the car.

He eventually comes back, but they still don't talk about it. And when he tells her he'll be flying a desk, around for at least the next six months if not longer, she looks practically stricken, like she can't imagine having him around that long.

It's catching her talking about him with Colonel Hickman's wife one afternoon a month into being home that nearly does him in. He can hear them when he comes in from the garage. Sarah is calling him withdrawn and moody, asking if she should be getting him counseling.

He doesn't mean to creep on them, but it's like he can't help it. He's angry that she's talking about him behind his back and even angrier that she had to choose his CO's wife. Was there any way to get off the promotion ladder faster than your CO thinking you were a headcase?

Hickman's wife startles when he appears in the kitchen, taking a beer from the fridge. Sara tries to say something, but he stalks off.

That night, after Charlie is safely asleep and he's still on the sofa with a set of empty beer bottles to keep him company, Sara invites him to come to bed.

He goes. As he strips, he suddenly feels angry about catching her gossiping and even though he knows it's a stupid idea, he tears into her over it, talking about how he doesn't need help, about how Mrs. Hickman is the worst person on the planet she could have complained to, and when did she forget how to play politics on his behalf.

“Politics? You're walking around like a zombie and you're worried about your career?” She's incredulous.

“I am not a headcase. And I don't need any 'help'.” Jack draws out the obvious quotation around help.

“Fine. Then talk to me,” she hisses. They would probably be yelling if it weren't for the two year-old in the next room. “I know it's all classified, but tell me something. Anything. Let me know you're dealing with it, whatever it is. Because I can't take this. I don't care if it takes you years to get over it, if you'll just talk to me and show me you're trying. Show me the man I love is still in there somewhere.”

He sinks to the bed in defeat. He doesn't have any good answers to her need.

She sighs and sits next to him. And then, because he can't talk to her, but he thinks he should make some sort of gesture, he kisses her.

She responds with enthusiasm. They haven't made love since he's been home. They've kissed only perfunctorily, the mundane kiss of goodbye before she leaves to drop Charlie at daycare and head to work. They end up laying back on the bed. Sara pulls her shirt off and Jack buries his face in her small, pert breasts, kissing the nipples, raising his hand to cup them. This is their language when they don't have words. He knows he's never going to be great at words, but he speaks the language of making love and knows that truth can emerge between them this way.

It's good. They kiss some more and Jack realizes he wants her. He hasn't wanted anything in the last month, but he wants his wife again and that's got to be good. He slides his hands over her, lets her take off his undershirt and palm his erection through his boxers.

Then she pushes him back and straddles him, leaning over to kiss him.

For a microsecond, their lips meet and then something snaps in his head and the next thing he knows, he's thrown her off, probably much too violently, and is sitting up, back against the headboard, panting.

She doesn't say anything, just slips her t-shirt back on and rests her head on her pillow. Eventually he lays down too and she spoons up behind him. She's obviously hesitant as she carefully reaches arms around him.

It's the hesitancy that breaks him. They are never careful around each other. She's the strongest woman he's ever known. She shouldn't have to treat him like glass. He feels his eyes cloud with tears.

“It all went to shit,” he whispers after awhile. When Sara doesn't say anything, he goes on. “They got us and wanted to know what intel we had.” As far as she knows he hasn't been anywhere but Germany, so who knows who she thinks the “they” in this scenario is, but he keeps talking. “They killed Hernandez. It was stupid. He didn't have anything they wanted.”

She strokes his chest and presses in closer.

“And then they went for me. I didn't have anything either, but...” His voice breaks. He feels more tears prickle his eyes. “It wasn't just torture. I mean… it was just torture. It's all just torture…”

There's a moment where her hand pauses just a fraction of a second before continuing to stroke. She gets it. She knows. He can't say the word rape, but she knows. He doesn't know if it helps or not. It feels like he's given her a giant burden that he doesn't think anyone should have to bear.

He closes his eyes tight and focuses on the softness of her fingers as they pad over his chest through his hair, over his nipples. Her breathing becomes more and more even until she's finally asleep, her hand still. Slowly, he drifts off as well.

When they wake up, it's still an hour before Charlie needs to be up and dressed. She kisses him and they both smell like sleep, but it good so he doesn't break off the kiss.

And the next thing he knows, she's pulling him on top of her and he's sliding his morning erection inside.

It's not the most amazing lovemaking ever. They both move almost sleepily until Jack finds his way to climax and Sara finishes herself off after he slides off her. And then there's no time to lounge around or process any feelings because she has to get to work and he's supposed to be on base and someone needs to get Charlie dressed, hopefully in something other than the Ninja Turtles shirt he hasn't wanted to take off for days.

But it's a beginning.

“I'll get Charlie dressed and drop him off,” Jack says as he gets out of bed.

Sara smiles. “Thanks. That would be amazing with the day I have.”


	3. Charlie

In the direct aftermath, at the hospital, Sara does a lot of screaming. First she screams at the EMT's and the nurses, then at the doctors, then at Charlie as he lays lifeless on the table, and finally at Jack.

From the moment he'd heard the shot and rushed upstairs and seen the blood, Jack shifted to mission commander mode, calm and authoritative. With some part of his brain that is watching everything from a detached and neutral place, he knows that it's only making everything worse, but it's letting him deal with the hospital forms and not be upset with Sara for being hysterical and, most importantly, not be hysterical himself.

Charlie is not the first person he's held in his arms as he died. He's not even the first person Jack loved who has died in his arms. The detached place practically screams at Jack that this is different. Charlie is tiny and fragile. Charlie wasn't a soldier on a mission who had chosen to risk his life. Charlie is his son.

Jack shuts down the part of his brain that wants him to do anything but carry on as he should. He takes Sara home eventually and tells her he'll handle everything for the funeral, which, over the next several days, he does.

And then he goes to the funeral and plays the part he's supposed to play. Mission commanders do whatever they're called upon to do, no matter what shit is going on in their heads, no matter if they've just broken up with their girls or lost a parent or been tortured in prison. You keep it together no matter what, so Jack keeps it together. He shakes hands and accepts hugs and listens to all the stories about Charlie that should be funny and heartwarming and he chuckles at them when he's supposed to. Then he carefully puts all the casseroles in the freezer with labels and cleans the mess left in the house.

Sara is not keeping it together. She swings from numbly getting dressed to screaming at Jack in the kitchen to curling up on the sofa and weeping for hours. Jack sees it, and the detached part of his brain says it's normal, that he should probably join her on the sofa and weep too, but he doesn't do it. He mostly ignores her. They are living two different realities in the same space.

It lasts almost two weeks until she walks in on him fixing the upstairs toilet and they really come to blows.

“Leave it alone,” she orders.

“Nah. It's broken. It's on the list. I should just fix it,” Jack says simply. It's a task. Mission commanders complete tasks.

“I said leave it alone.”

“I can't anymore. I started. It's halfway apart. If I leave it now, we won't have a toilet up here.”

“So we don't have an upstairs toilet,” Sara says. “Who cares? What does it matter?”

“What do you mean what does it matter?” Jack says. “Stop being absurd.”

“Absurd! You think I'm absurd? I'm not the one fixing a toilet when her son is dead.”

Jack nearly sputters. He stands up and faces her. “One has nothing to do with the other.”

“Screw you,” Sara says. “Fixing toilets.”

“I'm doing something,” he says. “Remember doing things? Instead of just wandering aimlessly around the house?”

“It's only been two weeks. Two weeks!”

“And all you do is cry.”

“And you haven't cried at all!” she accuses. “Have you even shed a single tear? He was your son!” Her voice rises and cracks. “You're like a fucking robot! It's like you're empty inside. Fixing the fucking toilet.”

He's not exactly sure what comes over him, but he grabs her and kisses her, hard. They have barely touched since that horrible afternoon. He's been sleeping on the sofa when he thinks he can get away with it, or sneaking into the bed after she's asleep, knocked out with pills the doctor gave her.

They've never been the sort of couple who is gentle with each other, but this is something else altogether. It's not a passionate kiss, it's angry and hostile and as they make their way to the bedroom, it's like they're screwing instead of fighting or maybe they're fighting by screwing because if they actually fight it'll get dirty and be even worse.

As Jack slams into her and Sara claws his back he starts to sob.

He's not even sure how they finish. At the end, he's pretty sure they're both bruised and she may have drawn blood on his back. Not that he cares much. He is under water and drowning. He manages to stop the tears, but it's only by acknowledging that they're an ocean without end.

Despite the roughness of their sex and the intensity of their shared grief, Sara looks almost content as he turns to her afterward. She is red faced and teary as well, but she also looks strangely calm, like she has come through the worst of an ordeal. “Jack,” she murmurs, “oh, Jack.”

He stands up. He's not even really consciously thinking about it. He just cannot stay there.

“Where are you going?” she asks. “Come back.”

He shakes his head, takes clothes from the floor and follows the trail into the hallway, slipping on his pants.

She stands and goes after him. “Where do you think you're going? Do not do this, Jack O'Neill. Don't. Just...” Her voice breaks.

He shakes his head. “I can't,” he says.

She keeps talking, alternately cajoling and threatening, but he barely hears her. He makes his way out the door and to the car.

The police took the gun Charlie used, but he has others. He doesn't think he has the strength now, but he will. It's only a matter of time before he finds a way to let go of whatever is left and let himself die.

He doesn't even hear Sara, who is at the door in her bathrobe, screaming at him.

“I'm just going out for some errands,” he says.

"Jack, don't you dare leave me! Don't you dare walk away!"

But he shuts the door and drives off.


	4. Daniel

Everyone wants to mourn Daniel's death. They want a memorial service and some of the cultural staff even want to name the whole archeology department after him. Carter wants to talk about their feelings. Teal'c wants to hold some sort of special group kel'no'reem to meditate on Daniel's soul. And Jack is fed up with it pretty quickly.

“He's not actually dead, you know!” he tells Carter, sending her scurrying away.

Over the last five years, he's had to adjust to some really weird shit, and this is some of the weirdest in the long line of weird, but that's okay because he's adjusting to it just fine. Besides, they get busy pretty fast, breaking in the new guy, fighting the good fight like they always do. Life goes on.

It's more than two months later that Jack is sitting at home in the middle of a four day leave after a long two weeks of missions that something hits him. He is more restless than he's felt in years, thinking about things that he barely let himself think about when Daniel was alive, much less since he left.

He tries to finish some projects around the house then to do a crossword and watch the rerun of a baseball game on the classic sports channel, but he can't get distracted, so he gets dressed and drives an hour north to the city.

It's been decades since he went to a bar to pick anyone up, but he goes now, in the hopes of purging this feeling from his head. It's like a parasite that he wants to be rid of as soon as possible.

The bar is relatively quiet though not empty. Guys talk in corners and eat bar food or drink. There's a large group of young guys having an argument with wild gesticulation that reminds Jack of Daniel so he looks away. There's a dance floor that looks like it probably gets more action on the weekends but there's music of the sort Jack doesn't listen to.

He orders a drink and sits down at the bar. The drink goes quickly so he orders another. A guy with blue eyes and sandy hair chats with him and Jack thinks he's found his pick up. However, when they get up together and the guy lays his hands on Jack, Jack's only impulse is to push him away, so he goes back to the bar and has another drink, whiskey this time.

The more he drinks, the more he thinks about Daniel. He doesn't want any of these random guys. He wanted Daniel, wanted him for years, and was too much of a coward to do anything about it. And now Daniel is gone and he'll never be able to tell him. Or maybe Daniel is now omniscient and knows, which is just completely weird and horrifying and somehow makes it worse if Daniel knows he's a coward. He doesn't mind the idea that Daniel knows he loved him. But that Daniel knows he was too scared to ever admit it, that's something else.

It's not quite closing time when the bartender, a guy with tattoos up one arm and a mustache that looks like he hopes to become a Salvador Dali impersonator, comes to lean on the bar near Jack.

“Sweetie, you're in a dark place and you're bringing the atmosphere down,” the bartender announces.

Jack harrumphs. “I'll give you a decent tip,” he says.

The bartender chuckles. “It's not about the tip. I have to cut you off.”

Jack starts to object but the bartender says, “And, sad sweetie, I've got to take your keys too. You have turned down every offer on the table, so I think you should call it a night. Can I call you a cab?”

He can't take a cab all the way home. Jack shakes his head.

“Can I call you a friend then? You look like you need one.”

“There's no one to call,” Jack says. There isn't. He can hardly call anyone from the Mountain. Or anyone he knows socially. Even if he could, they're all an hour away.

“Closing is in less than an hour and you won't be sobered up enough by then.” The bartender pauses. “You want to talk about him? Whoever he is? I assume he left you high and dry.”

Jack shakes his head dismissively.

“Well, you need to...”

But Jack has had enough. He stands up, but the world reels under him and he finds himself back on the barstool. He can't remember the last time he drank this much. Probably after Daniel died the second time. Or was it the first? Or the third?

“Give me a number so you don't end up out on the street without your keys tonight,” the bartender says.

“If I tell you who to call, will you give me another drink?”

“If I must,” the bartender sighs.

So Jack closes his eyes and says the only number of the only person he can think of who isn't too far away, who will come when he calls.

When Sara pulls up an hour later, the bartender says goodnight, handing him his keys and locking the door behind Jack as he staggers toward her car.

“Jack,” she says as he sits down in the passenger seat.

“Thanks,” he manages, but he doesn't think he can say anything more. He half braces himself for her to ask about it. Why is he wasted? Why did he call her? Why at a gay bar? It's not the first gay bar he's ever been to, but he doesn't think she knows about any of that. He was always faithful when they were together. His brain tries to piece together what he'll say.

But it's Sara and she doesn't say anything. She drives him twenty minutes away to her home and walks him inside without a single word.

“There's an extra toothbrush under the sink. And there are cups. You should really be sure to hydrate. It'll help tomorrow.”

He manages to grunt his thanks and follows her suggestion. He's far from sober, but he can at least walk straight now, mostly.

She was already in sweatpants and a t-shirt under her jacket when she picked him up. When he comes out of the bathroom, she looks impatient.

“You can't sleep like that,” she says. “Get out of your clothes and come on.”

This was what he always loved about her, the way she could take charge of a situation and cut to the chase. He follows her orders. He was always pretty good at that. And then he follows her again, wearing nothing but boxers and an undershirt, into her bedroom and then onto her bed. He doesn't have the will to fight and it's so good. It's the best kind of pretend. Pretending that he has a shred of normalcy. He usually doesn't think about the guys at the SGC who have wives and normal civilian lives, but he's thinking about them now, envying them.

Sara pulls the covers around him and then joins him, coming to spoon up behind him. She pulls him in for an embrace and as she does it, the alcohol and the pain and the grief all hit him hard and he begins to cry.

Daniel may not be dead, but he's gone. From the perspective of Jack and all the other little bugs roaming around the galaxy, he might as well be dead.

“Shh...” Sara says, with a sort of deep sigh.

Jack continues to cry, great dry heaves that eventually lead embarrassingly to hiccups. Sara runs fingers firmly along his spine, trying to calm him down.

When he's finally finished, she says, “Did you lose someone or was it a mission?”

“Someone,” Jack says finally.

“What was his name?”

“Daniel. You met him that one time. You probably don't remember.”

“You feel like it was your fault or there some other reason...”

Jack sucks in air like he's been drowning. “Other reason. Reasons.”

“You want to talk about them?”

Jack is shaking, more tears on his face. “I can't,” he says. “I can't.”

“It's okay,” Sara says. “You don't have to.”

“I was a coward.”

“You were never a coward, Jack.”

He can feel her breath on the back of his neck, gentle and warm.

“I never told him how much I loved him,” he says. It's the truth but not the whole truth. Sara reads it though.

“He knew,” she says. “You have to believe he knew.”

Jack breathes deeply. Daniel didn't know, couldn't have known. But maybe he knew how much Jack cared. Maybe that's enough. Maybe he can listen to Sara's kind, trite words. It's what he called her for, he's sure.

The last of the tears wring out of him and he falls asleep in her embrace, pretending and letting himself be comforted.

In the morning, he stands up, hung over and sick and embarrassed. He's worried he's about to have to have a conversation with Sara that he can't have. But she doesn't seem to mind. She makes sure he has breakfast and drives him to his car. The bar parking lot is empty.

As he says mumbled thanks, Sara looks like she wants to say something so he waits. He's used her badly so if she wants to know something or to tell him off, as far as he's concerned, she can.

“Maybe you should retire, Jack. It can't be worth it to stay at the job with… everything.”

He doesn't meet her eyes. “I can't leave. It's… I don't expect you to understand.”

She nods. “I don't have to anymore. If you need someone, Jack...”

“Don't worry, I won't make a habit of this.”

She breathes out deeply. “I wasn't going to say that. I was going to say call me if you have to. Or call someone. Find someone to call.”

He nods and opens the car door. “Thanks.”


	5. Janet

Jack's injury wasn't nothing and he came through the gate on a stretcher himself, so he ends up spending the next two weeks under medical care. By the time he's recovered enough to go home without anyone checking up on him, most of the SGC has done their grieving. Carter is still on leave, trying to deal with having inherited a nearly adult daughter. Cassie only has a few months of school left before she heads to college. Her acceptances are already on her desk. It's still a lot to deal with though.

Jack goes to the funeral, hobbling, mostly staying in the background. Carter looks stoic and shellshocked. Cassie's entire face is red and puffy. Fraiser's family looks distraught but slightly confused as to who all these people are and what actually happened. Closed casket. Died during a training accident while helping a victim of an experimental weapon. Jack is sick of the cover stories. They seem so thin.

Daniel cries at the graveside. Carter hugs him. Cassie hugs him. Cassie is hugging everyone, even Teal'c, who is one of the least huggable people Jack can think of. She even finds Jack and hugs him before they leave for the house. Jack isn't up for the socializing really, but he goes anyway because that's what you're supposed to do.

It's extra awkward because the crowd at the house is a mix of Janet's family and old friends, Cassie's high school friends who have come to support her, and SGC personnel. No one can figure out how to talk to each other and they mostly end up segregated in their groups. Janet and Cassie's friends talk about Janet, but the SGC people can't figure out what to say that isn't a breach of national security so they mostly look uncomfortable with each other.

Once they've put in their time and helped Carter tidy up a little and hugged Cassie one more time, Daniel says to Jack, as if he's just thinking of it at that moment, “Give me a ride? I don't have my car.”

And Jack, as if he's put out by how Daniel doesn't think logistics through, mildly hassles him about it but quickly acquiesces.

“That sucked,” Daniel says succinctly once they're in the car.

“You can say that again.” Jack doesn't really want to talk about it. If someone had asked him two months ago who was the heart of the SGC, he would have said Daniel was. Daniel was the one who made the gate work, who kept them honest, who made sure they saved the world. Now he's sure it was Janet because when Daniel left, they lost their conscience and they started to lose to Anubis, but since Janet died, he can tell they're all heartbroken.

Daniel seems to pick up on Jack's need for silence so they go back to Jack's house without speaking. Daniel dives into some work on his computer while Jack watches sports news and makes chicken and rice for dinner.

When they go to bed, they're both hungry and wanting. They've been avoiding being too rough with Jack's injuries, but that all goes out the window. When Daniel sinks into him, Jack feels tension he didn't even know he was holding leave his body, making him spineless and loose.

Afterward, Jack is sprawled out face down and Daniel is still halfway on top of him when Jack begins to feel the grief and loss run over him.

Daniel pulls back, resting on his elbow. “Are you… crying?” He sounds incredulous.

Part of Jack wants to deny it. It took him by surprise as well, though it probably shouldn't have. He knew on some level he was holding back this tide of grief. Janet isn't even the only person they've lost this month, she's just the one they were all closest to, but every loss hurts.

“Men can cry, Daniel,” he says, his voice waffling between teary and snarky. “It's allowed.”

“I know it's allowed. I cried this morning at the funeral, you know,” Daniel says, sounding almost annoyed.

When Jack doesn't reply, Daniel definitely sounds annoyed. “What's wrong with you? Turn around and talk to me.”

Of course Daniel would insist on facing him. That shouldn't have surprised him either. No crying with someone spooned up behind him. Daniel makes him face everything head on every time. So Jack flips over.

“You never cry,” Daniel says, still sounding incredulous, like he hadn't really believed it until he saw it.

“I cry sometimes,” Jack says, defensive.

“But after sex? Way to make a guy feel special.”

Jack's sense of grief starts to turn to anger. “You don't get it.” For a moment, he sits there, messy and sticky and sore and he feels the irritation build. “I'm going to go shower off.” He stands up and walks to the bathroom, turning the water on and waiting for it to get warm.

Daniel follows him. “Wait. Jack. I… If I don't get it, explain it to me.” He looks at Jack like he's a puzzle to solve, but that just increases Jack's level of irritation.

Jack steps in the shower and closes the curtain. “Fuck off, Daniel.”

By the time Jack emerges from the shower, steaming and warm, he has cooled down. He no longer feels the heavy weight of guilt and there's no fire in his anger at Daniel's insensitivity.

Daniel looks nervous, but he hasn't left the bed. Jack can tell he's cleaned himself up and slipped into an old t-shirt. He has one of Jack's paperback mysteries in front of him, probably to keep himself awake because he looks beyond beat.

“I didn't mean to keep you up,” Jack says, pulling on a pair of old sweatpants.

“I fucked up,” Daniel says. “Tell me how to make it right.”

Jack shrugs and climbs in bed.

“I shouldn't have judged you. It's horrible what happened to Janet. We should all cry about it however much we need to. You just took me by surprise, that's all.”

Jack grunts, but he lays down facing Daniel, knowing he can't get away with looking away, even when Daniel's apologizing.

“I can't be held responsible for anything I say or do five minutes after orgasm,” Daniel says, clearly trying to lighten the mood. “I'm an utter idiot.”

Jack gives another affirmative grunt so Daniel turns out the lights and slides in facing him, their bodies aligned on the bed.

“I love you,” Daniel says, leaning forward and kissing Jack softly on the lips.

“Stop trying so hard,” Jack complains. “It's fine.”

As their hands meet together between them, Jack can feel Daniel relax imperceptibly. “Jack… Why then? Why not earlier?” Even in the midst of saying sorry, he can't stop puzzling it out.

Jack huffs and he can feel Daniel tense again so he pulls closer and kisses him. It feels good. “Because of you,” he says.

“Thanks,” Daniel says dryly. “Like I said, way to make a guy feel special.”

“Not...” Jack wants to hit him but keeps himself from doing so. “You make me feel safe.”

It's an intimate admission. It's harder than when they first said love, months ago now. It makes Jack feel vulnerable and scared and like crying all over again.

Daniel is finally done talking to him. He seems to understand that this admission is important. He wraps his arms around Jack and kisses him again. Jack feels the moment they both find their way back to the relaxed place they were in post sex. And maybe they even could go another round, which seems insane and impossible to Jack.

“We should get some sleep,” he says when their lips part.

“Yeah,” Daniel agrees. He flips Jack over and nuzzles into his back, wedging his legs between Jack's.

Jack hums his appreciation. He feels safe again. And he eventually falls asleep to Daniel's light snores.


End file.
